Show offs

And so off the famiglia caravana trudged westward, as is our yearly wont, to expose the Junior Cost Centres to babies drinking Coke through teats, toddlers sporting mohawks and head carvings, adults missing many bottom teeth and more body art than one can poke a fairy floss-covered stick at.

Yup, the Sydney Royal Easter Show.

As usual, proof that los mothering standards are constantly on the slide was not hard to come by. Here’s just one of the many carny-built contraptions La actively encouraged the JCCs to go on.

Little fella JCC just never seems to grow fast enough for his liking. Here he is gazing wistfully at yet another heightist sign barring him from entry to a carny contraption. La suspects he could also be picking his nose. Or finding himself downwind of a less-than-salubrious Easter Show odour.

This little rather large piggy went to market. Well, technically not to market; rather to a Donald-Trump-style-Miss Universe ‘meat market’ pageant of the porcine world, where she found herself roundly objectified and judged on her weight, complexion and fairness of face.

After her swimsuit parade, she hot-hoofed it back to her pen, where she multitasked — resting while feeding her Junior Cost Centres — like any diligent, hard-working mum.

La just wishes someone had done the decent thing and removed the steaming wodge of piggy poo near her sleepy head before she dozed off.

We love los cows.

Someone once told La a failsafe way to tell a dairy moo from a meat moo: when viewed from the top, the former’s torso is shaped like a teardrop, and the latter’s like a rectangle. Thoughts, farming people?

Couldn’t get high enough at the show to test this method. Sadly for La, big big shoes are verboten west of Five Dock; might need to unexpectedly run away from scary local folk missing teeth.

We fell in love — all over again — with the O’Packers (as Male JCC calls them).

Who could resist this face?

Here’s Mrs O’Packer at her own meat market parade… dealing well, though, with the critically appraising eyes and general objectification.

Trap for young players: beware los animal pats. Even in sale-shopped $40 ballet flats. A soleful of this stuff is an indignity that should not be visited upon even the cheapest of shoes.

But despite the beauty parades, evidence of infant malnutrition, inappropriately situated poo and fascist height directives, sure as Easter eggs we’ll be back next year.